Recently, there has been increased pressure to protect, store, and efficiently share data. This increased pressure has facilitated the growth of the storage-as-a-service market. Key players in this technological area are known as storage service providers (SSPs). Analysts predict that the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of online backup services will increase by dramatically in the coming years. As small-to-medium businesses anticipate the need for storage capacity to grow annually, the cost for such businesses to procure, power, and manage their own “data warehouses” becomes prohibitive.
In the hours following any catastrophic network failure of any scale, every business no matter the size could see the benefit of a remote, geographically diverse data backup, storage and restoration service. Particularly vulnerable is the small-to-medium businesses space whose managers may not be fully aware of the risk factors, have the technical expertise, time, or budget to implement their own solution.
Moreover, as the amount of digital data generated annually continues to climb, consumption of external disk capacity used for traditional business data, replicated data, and fixed content combined is expected to expand rapidly. Investments in new technology are focused on gaining efficiencies. However, for the small business the increasing amount of storage required can quickly render brand new hardware at the server and the end-user PC level obsolete. Scalable, and with the ability to increase capacity as the customer's business needs grow, online storage would allows the customer to get more out of their hardware technology investment. The customer would no longer has to contract with an information technology (IT) consultant, procure replacement drives or undergo risky data migrations when the storage space on their hardware reaches capacity.
In the fixed content category alone, small businesses can save many thousands annually by making their product catalogs, brochures, digital photographs, and customer deliverables available for secure download to anyone they grant access. For the small business, saving the ever increasing cost of paper, printing, postage, and overnight couriers makes them more competitive in the marketplace, contributes directly to their bottom line, and for the small business it can make the difference between seeing red and black.
Looking closer at the traditional methods of distribution, beside cost savings an added benefit would be that each time they share these items via their secure server space versus traditional methods the customer would be doing their part in becoming more environmentally responsible. This environmentally responsible approach would be especially appealing to the communities and a great number of customers they serve as the customer would be reducing the “carbon footprint” of their products. The carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are produced and released into the atmosphere when the goods are made, shipped and stored, and then used by consumers.